Bhubaneswar: A file 6.41 lakh Olive Ridley sea turtles have laid eggs on the Rushikulya rookery in Odisha’s Ganjam district until Friday evening throughout the mass nesting season that started this week and lasts until March first week. Wildlife officers and conservationists mentioned on Saturday that this makes an all-time excessive for the mass breeding web site at Rushikulya rookery, which is the most important such web site within the nation.
On a median, one Olive Ridley sea turtle lays 50-100 eggs throughout a season. (PCCF Wildlife Odisha)
The Oidhsa principal chief conservator of forests (PCCDF) (wildlife), Prem Kumar Jha, mentioned that round 6.41 lakh turtles have laid eggs on the Rushikulya sea seaside between Podampeta to Bateshwar until Friday evening, surpassing the earlier highest nesting of 6.37 lakh Olive Ridleys within the 2022-23 season.
Jha mentioned by the point the nesting season, referred to as arribada (Spanish for arrival) will get over on Rushikulya by March first week, the quantity could go upto 7 lakhs.
Olive ridley turtles are the smallest of the marine turtles on this planet. The turtles lay their eggs in flask formed nests a few foot and a half deep, which they dig with their hind flippers. On a median, one turtle lays 50-100 eggs throughout a season.
The eggs incubate beneath the sand for a interval of 45-55 days relying on the climate situations. After the arribada, the females head again into the ocean and usually migrate again to their foraging grounds. After about 45-65 days, the eggs start to hatch and the child turtles crawl in direction of the ocean.
As per the forest division knowledge, Olive Ridleys had skipped mass nesting at Rushikulya in 2015-16, 2018-19, 2020-21 and 2023-24 over the previous decade.
Turtle researchers say nobody is aware of why Olive Ridley turtles skip a nesting floor. “What we know for sure is once they do mass nesting on a beach, they skip it for a couple of years. There are several environmental reasons such as unseasonal rain, absence of southern winds and El Nino. But it’s difficult to say why the turtles skip mass nesting a particular year,” mentioned Bibhash Pandav, a turtle researcher at Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun.
Although Gahirmatha seaside in Odisha’s Bhitarkanika district was one of many world’s largest mass nesting websites together with the coasts of Mexico and Costa Rica, seaside erosion has diminished the realm, forcing many of the turtles emigrate to Rushikulya river mouth.
State wildlife officers mentioned that to facilitate easy nesting this season, fencing was executed over a 5-km stretch alongside the coast whereas joint sea patrolling was intensified. Because the turtles get disoriented resulting from lights, the ports and industrial institutions have been requested to dim the string lights of their amenities close to the nesting websites until the hatchlings transfer out to the ocean.
Forest workers, coast guard, marine police and marine fishery departments patrolled the ocean collectively to forestall fishing inside 20 km from the nesting web site on the coast from November 1, when the turtles congregate offshore for mating, to Might 31.
The Indian Coast Guard just lately inaugurated ‘Operation Olivia’, a complete initiative geared toward safeguarding the turtles throughout their nesting interval in Paradip. Utilizing drones, Coast Guard vessels, and Dornier plane, Coast Guard officers tried to forestall any alien intruders into the riverbeds the place the turtles are laying their eggs.